Cloture Motion

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, farmers across Iowa are finishing their planting of corn and soybeans. As for the Grassley farm, Robin and Pat Grassley finished planting last Thursday.

Most people have never stepped foot on a family farm, let alone know all about the complexities that go into planting, growing, and harvesting a bountiful crop. That is why I often use my social media to show my followers what is going on in farming--hashtag ``corn watch,'' hashtag ``soybean watch.'' I like to show how only 2 percent of the population raises food for the other 98 percent, plus exporting one- third of our production to feed people overseas. Food doesn't just magically appear on grocery store shelves.

When so few people know what it takes to produce food, we often run into obstacles at policymaking tables here in Congress and around Washington, DC. I often quote something Dwight Eisenhower said, and he said it best:

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.

There has never been a more important time than right now for farmers to have a successful year. We are facing a world threatened by food shortages and food insecurity the likes of which we haven't seen since the Arab Spring a decade ago, in large part today because of Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

The productivity of the American farmers and ranchers this crop season will have a big impact on the security and prosperity of countries around the world, as well as to make sure we don't get into a devastating shortage of food.

With so much at stake, Washington, DC, must provide farmers across the country a consistent policy when it comes to regulation of inputs and crop protection products. One State out of fifty can't go another direction without bringing harm to food production.

When it comes to the regulation of these products, public policy must be based on the best science available to make informed decisions. Science-based decisions shouldn't surprise anybody in this town because science was the Golden Rule in every coronavirus decision made in the Trump administration and still being made in the Biden administration.

The best science is why Congress enacted, in 1972, the regulation that goes by the title of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act or FIFRA for short. Since 1972, FIFRA has expressly preempted State law, vested the EPA with final authority over pesticide labeling and the usage of that pesticide. Specifically, FIFRA gave the EPA authority over pesticide labeling and the usage of that pesticide. Under FIFRA, it is the EPA's responsibility to undertake very extensive scientific review of regulated products and then determine what disclosures, if any, must be on the product labels. FIFRA provides that EPA conduct studies to determine product safety.

Congress intended that there be a Federal regulatory regime that would impose warnings, impose disclosures, and impose restrictions on the use of products under FIFRA. Congress made it very clear that Congress wanted science-based certainty and predictability for farmers and the resulting benefit that is to the farm entire economy.

Unfortunately, we have seen politically motivated environmentalists pushing for restrictions on regulated products that the EPA has determined are not necessary. This fundamentally undermines trust in the EPA and trust in Federal regulation of these products used in farming.

Make no doubt about my stand or anybody's stand here in the U.S. Senate, we all strongly support thorough vetting of regulated products to ensure public safety. However, I strongly support ensuring Iowa farmers have the supplies they need to feed families across America.

I hope President Biden would agree with me. His administration should be putting forward policies and taking positions that protect public safety, while ensuring farmers can produce the food that we need here in America and that we are able to supply one-third of our production for overseas. As we look at the world with a growing shortage of food-- as I emphasized, partly because of what is going on in Ukraine--we must then ask ourselves what more we can be doing to support farmers.

Unfortunately, some recent decisions just made by this administration do just exactly the opposite. I said ``just made by this administration'' because 2 weeks ago, President Biden's Solicitor General filed a brief in a case involving widely used pesticides. In that brief, the Solicitor General flipped the government's long-held position that FIFRA preempts State law and instead argued against EPA's authority. So it looks to me like politics overcomes science.

You would think such a significant change would be firmly based on the law and science, just as I said. However, the Solicitor General explained this astounding change wasn't based on science because it was based on politics. Perhaps that is why the EPA general counsel's name doesn't appear on the brief.

I heard from many constituents about how serious of an impact the position taken by Biden's Solicitor General would have on the farming industry at-large. If the Court, meaning the Supreme Court, effectively adopts the Solicitor General's position and that of the lower court decision, it will fundamentally disrupt the Federal regulation of use and of warnings under FIFRA related to substances such as these that farmers rely on every day in production agriculture.

It is clear that it wasn't the intent of Congress when it enacted FIFRA for there to be 50 State standards in addition to Federal standards because we all know the purpose of FIFRA was to create a uniform regime with authority vested in the EPA to set such standards, and that has never been questioned until now.

It is shocking that President Biden chose to put forward an argument that undermines the public trust in the EPA by putting politics ahead of the longstanding and consistent EPA regulation that enables farmers to grow the food that we and the world need. This abrupt change in the administration's position will have serious implications for the farm economy and our food supply.

Again, there needs to be a consistent regulatory regime to ensure the public's trust and to support U.S. agriculture so farmers can produce food, again, I say, that the Nation needs and the world needs.

So I hope the Solicitor General reverses her position, and even if she doesn't reverse her position, I hope the Supreme Court of the United States will be willing to hear this case.

I want to now quote Dr. Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, I think, in 1970. This winner was born and raised in Iowa:

If you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at the same time cultivate the fields to produce more bread; otherwise there will be no peace.

I think what he is referring to there is--at least what I believe and I have heard--that societies are only nine meals away from revolution. In other words, if you are a father and a mother and you can't feed your kids for 3 days, you will go to almost any end to make sure they get the food. So if you want social cohesion in America and around the world, we have to have enough food to feed our people.

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